Cristiano Ronaldo breaks YouTube subscriber record with his channel debut

“Siuuubscribe.” The football star reaches 30 million subscribers just two days after uploading his first video to the platform.

Cristiano Ronaldo is the world's most popular person on social media with some 917 million followers and now he's raised the bar even higher.

The Portuguese footballer, who is used to breaking records on the pitch over his two-decade career, set another milestone on YouTube last week with the launch of his channel, UR.

After uploading the first video on 21 August, the Ronaldo's channel reached one million subscribers in just an hour and a half, making it the fastest to do so on the platform.

The video, which is just over a minute long, shows footage at the Times Square event unveiling his wax figure for Madame Tussauds, in 2022.

YouTube was quick to recognise his success: the same day he uploaded his first video, the player shared another one in which he shows his children the Gold Creator Award, a plaque that the platform gives to creators who reach one million subscribers.

This unusual speed has led social media users to wonder whether he received this recognition before he even opened the channel.

Two days after its premiere, UR surpassed 30 million subscribers, anther record for Ronaldo on YouTube. At the time of writing this article, the channel has 46 million followers and 20 videos.

What can be found on Cristiano Ronaldo's channel?

The captain of the Portuguese national team and the Saudi team Al-Nassr wants to talk about football, but also “his other interests, including family, wellness, nutrition, preparation, recovery, education, and business,” according to the news announcement shared by Variety.

“It's a way for me to be closer to my fans, to my people. I think it's an ideal platform to be able to share a bit of my life, my things; very organic, original content,” Ronaldo says in one of his videos with his partner, the Spanish supermodel and social media influencer Georgina Rodríguez.

This video, in which they speak in Spanish, is dubbed into English and allows users to choose which version to listen to. In other videos, the player speaks in English or Portuguese, in which case a dubbed audio track and subtitles are also provided.

Those expecting to see the football star doing IRL around Riyadh will be disappointed. Far from an intimate atmosphere, some of the content looks more like promotional campaign spots than personal stories.

The videos uploaded so far are short, many of them a minute or less, and almost all of them are professionally produced and edited.

The second most viewed at the moment, with 39 million views, shows Cristiano and Georgina playing the Mr & Mrs game, a Q&A challenge for couples.